In some cases, an enterprise will need to create a number of computing systems. For example, a company might need to install and configure an Operating System (OS), device drivers, and software applications on several newly purchased servers or Personal Computers (PCs). Although an operator could manually create each computing system (e.g., by installing and configuring the appropriate components on each PC), such an approach can be impractical (e.g., there might not be an operator available at all times) and time consuming. Moreover, because different types of hardware and software may need to be combined in different ways, errors can occur when computing systems are manually created (e.g., an administrator might install an outdated device driver or correct a mis-configured security setting).
As another approach, FIG. 1 is a block diagram overview of a system 100 in which an installing device 100 provides information to a first target machine 120 and a second target machine 122. In particular, the installing device 100 transmits a number of files to the first target machine 120 in order to create a computing system. For example, the installing device 100 might transmit to the first target machine 120 files that are required to install an OS. Note, however, that a typical OS (e.g., Microsoft® WINDOWS XP or Linux) can require a large number of files (e.g., tens of thousands of files may need to be transmitted). Moreover, different components and configurations may need to be sequentially installed to complete the build (e.g., the installing device 110 might install fX followed by fY and then fX). As a result, it can take a substantial amount of time to create the computing system in this way. For example, each computing system might take twenty minutes to create. In addition, the installing device 110 might not begin creating a computing system on the second target machine 122 until all of the files have been installed on the first target machine 120—significantly increasing the time required to create a large number of computing systems. Note that a skilled administrator may still be needed to manually configure and re-configure the computing systems (e.g., when a new security patch is released for an OS).